(TibetanReview.net, Jun27, 2016) – China has said Jun 25 that it was not talking with Taiwan anymore because the latter’s new President Tsai Ing-wen was refusing to endorse its concept of a single Chinese nation on the basis of the so-called 1992 consensus between the two sides.

In a statement posted on the website of the Chinese Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office, spokesman An Fengshan said contacts between bodies responsible for ties had been suspended starting from Tsai’s May 20 inauguration, reported the AP Jun 25.

The statement was said to quote An as saying, “Because the Taiwan side has been unable to confirm the ’92 consensus that embodies the common political foundation of the one-China principle, the mechanism for contact and communication between the two sides has already been suspended.”

The report said the ’92 consensus referred to an arrangement made in 1992 under which both sides acknowledged the existence of a single Chinese nation comprising both Taiwan and the mainland. That understanding underpinned dialogue between the two sides, allowing them to build ties and partially overcoming enmity stemming from their bitter split amid the Chinese civil war in 1949.

Tsai has neither formally endorsed nor repudiated the construct.

The Chinese statement came after Taiwan protested Cambodia’s deportation of 25 Taiwanese internet scam suspects to China. It appeared to signify a significant step in retaliation for Tsai’s pro-Taiwanese independence stance, the report noted.

Like in the case of Tibet, China claims that Taiwan has been part of its territory since ancient times. However, the report noted, the two sides have only been unified for four of the past 120 years. Taiwan has, at least since 1949, functioned as an independent country and does not acknowledge Beijing’s claim of authority over it.

Taiwan currently has formal diplomatic ties with 22 nations as a result of China imposed isolation. Most of them are in Central America, the Caribbean, Africa and the South Pacific. China is seen as being likely to target those allies of Taiwan in further retaliation.